Sunday, May 22, 2016

There have been a number of updates on affordable housing in East
Liberty and the East End lately. Please bear with me as I attempt to
bring the blog up to speed.

Mellon's Orchard (URA redevelopment project)
If you haven't already heard, Trek Development
was awarded the Mellon's Orchard South project for a new mixed-income
housing development on the parking lot sites at the northwest corner of
Penn Circle, aka the Farmers Market site. While we have not seen actual
design proposals yet (which would still be very preliminary and subject
to change), what we do know is that that the plans include:

104 units of rental housing

50% of these are slated for households at or below 60% Area Median Income (AMI)

The
remaining 50% have been indicated as renting at 10-15% below "market
rate". Which means looking at rental rates of $800 - $1600 per month,
rather than the $1,800 - 3,000 per month rates that are being seen
elsewhere in East Liberty's new developments of late. This is good news
as these rates will, hopefully, make them accessible to a wider range of
residents on more moderate incomes, but who are getting by without
subsidy.

The coverage also reports that there will be retail
spaces that will target leasing to local and minority- and women-owned
businesses. This is also good news as we are seeing rates in the
commercial district skyrocket.

It
should also be noted that LG Realty, the owners of Penn Plaza, did also
submit for the Mellon's Orchard project and were not awarded. Given the
structure of the Memorandum of Understanding from September 2015, the
fact that they were not awarded this project currently releases them
from obligation to provide affordable housing on the Penn Plaza site. I
note "currently" because there may still be tools that the City is
developing for all developers on projects of a certain size that can be
used to leverage affordable housing in the future (see Affordable
Housing Task Recommendations below). Ryan Deto of the City Paper
provides updated coverage of the Mellon's Orchard and its relationship
to Penn Plaza and Enright Parklet here.

Affordable Housing Task Force - Initial Recommendations
The City's Affordable Housing Task Force
presented its draft recommendations to City Council on April 28, 2016
at a post-agenda hearing. There was a lot of coverage of the event,
including the Post Gazette and others. The Mayor's press release
on the recommendations includes a short digestible summary as well.
There was also an extremely well attended press conference and hearing
right before the post-agenda. Not sure on the actual head count, but
many passionate statements on the need for affordable housing.

This
need is made even clearer via some of the ULI report (see below page
13) that point out that the East End (meaning East
Liberty-Larimer-Homewood-East Hills-Lincoln-Lemington) median income is
$23,000, meaning that "affordable" (at 30% of income) means a rent of
$640 per month. By way of scale, the median for Pittsburgh as a whole is
$41,000 with affordable housing clocking in at $1,100. And neither of
these rates has been addressed in any new housing that we have seen in
East Liberty in the past 4 years.

Admittedly, some
of the recommendations hit that "well of COURSE!" note, but it is also
incredibly important to have these written down, documented, and adopted
in order to create a framework that can be used to shape policy. We are
looking forward at how the actual implementation of the work moves
forward, and how quickly some of it can happen. Housing policy is a
massive ship, it is significantly underfunded, and, regardless of how we
all know that it is well beyond time to do the right thing, it takes a
lot of time, money, and effort to turn it around. Kudos to the City for
finally taking it on and accepting the challenges it brings.

Urban Land Institute Study and Preliminary Report
East Liberty Development Inc (ELDI), working in concert with Councilman Burgess's office, contracted with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to conduct a 5-day
visioning exercise to evaluate the vision and strategies for preserving
affordable housing in the East End. The
goal of this strategy is to preserve and provide a diverse range of
high-quality affordable housing; protect existing low-income residents;
leverage development and economic growth from public economic and
infrastructure investments in East Liberty and Larimer; and to attract
new growth from the region.

ULI has completed their preliminary report, which you can download here.
There is also a link to the powerpoint presentation and Councilman
Burgess's office is working to get the televised broadcast of the report
out up on-line via the City's cable channel. Stay tuned as more report outs come on-line.

About Enright Park

Enright Park Neighborhood Association is comprised of homeowners, renters, public housing residents, and landlords who live in close proximity to Enright Parklet in Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood.

In recent years, we have seen a dramatic transformation of our community, which has resulted in the on-going displacement of our friends and neighbors. This displacement has disproportionately impacted people of color, seniors living on fixed incomes, low-income working families, and the many ways in which these groups intersect.

The Enright Park Neighborhood Association was established to advance the joint causes of affordable housing, public open space, and an inclusive approach to planning and development that will build and enhance a livable East Liberty for everyone in our community. We intend to win a better East Liberty for everyone, and to help set a new standard self-determination for our communities.

Please join us, and let us know how we can support and promote your voice too. For membership information, please complete the form here.

For more information, including media, please contact us at enright.park@gmail.com.